The Alan Johnston affair proves that Hamas has mastered the art of manipulation no less than has Fatah Chairman Abbas. Hamas has turned the Johnston crisis into a major public relations coup. It is now being portrayed as the saviors of the Gaza Strip -- the protectors of law and order.
Hamas was so effective that even English MP’s have fallen for the charade, hook, line and sinker. "Freed BBC reporter thanks Abbas," from the BBC:
Meanwhile a group of UK MPs called for international engagement with Hamas.Twenty MPs from all parties signed a motion in the House of Commons calling for a new relationship with the group following its role in securing the journalist's release.
It is interesting to note that the US State Department hasn't picked up on this. "U.S.: no immediate change of attitude toward Hamas," from Xinhua:
The United States said on Thursday that Hamas' role in releasing of BBC reporter Alan Johnston will not change the world's opinion of the Islamic militant group."I don't think the world views Hamas any differently as a result of this," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said of the release of Johnston who was kidnapped in Gaza in March.
Hamas has gone to great lengths to explain its interest in seeing Alan Johnston go free. It has nothing to do with any policy change. It has nothing to do with giving up terror. It has everything to do with public perception. It has everything to do with continuing its murderous ways. Hamas is not shy. Here is its explanation of why it was so bent on seeing Johnston go free.
In "Sacked Hamas PM denies Johnston's captors get $5 mln" from Xinhua, we read this from Hamas strongman and former Prime Minister Haneya:
"I can confirm that there was no transaction or bargaining. The release of Johnston was unconditioned. We don't disperse political rewards, we just want a shining image of our people, Hamas and the government," said Haneya.
And in "'Syria pushed Hamas to free Johnston,'" in the Jerusalem Post, we read this from Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri:
"We hope that the international community will end its boycott of Hamas and realize that they made a mistake when they refused to accept the democratic choice of the Palestinians when they voted for us. Today we proved to the world that we respect the freedom of the media and that we won't allow anyone to harm a foreigner who visits us."
It’s all about public relations. And based on the response from the English PM's, the ploy seems to be working at least with some people.
However, the most shameful display was reserved for Alan Johnston himself.
"BBC reporter's freedom 'really staged for movie,'" by Aaron Klein for WND:
Johnston thanked Haniyeh and said Hamas saved his life. At a news conference in Jerusalem, Johnston again credited Hamas with saving his life."I'm pretty sure that if Hamas hadn't come in and turned the heat on, I'd still be in that room," Johnston said.
"Hamas has a huge law and order agenda," he said.
Although Hamas is considered a terror group by most Western governments, Johnston said, Hamas "is better at keeping law and order than many would agree. And God knows Gaza needs law and order."
Johnston has, like his BBC bosses, sold himself out to the Jihadists. He wasn’t even given the cheap polyester suit that his brave countrymen were honored with upon the conclusion of their embarrassing episode in Iran. Johnston played the role of political pawn to a tee. He embarrassed himself and his country.
In "Hamas won the propaganda war this week" in the TimesOnline, Gerard Baker sums it up.
How do you like your jihadi? Is yours the avenging physician sort; self-immolating practitioner of weird medicine outside nightclubs and airport terminals who hopes to take hundreds of innocents with him on his journey to Paradise?Or do you prefer the voice of sweet reason, the heroic freedom fighter turned politician, who magnanimously leaps into a hostage drama and helps to free your innocent journalist from his captors?
Not difficult, is it?
We’ve had an exercise in good-cop, bad-cop with our Islamist friends in the past week. In London and Glasgow, the nutters – the scale of their murderous ambition matched only by their ineptitude with a car a mobile phone and a tankful of petrol – tried the explosive, take-no-prisoners approach to persuading the West to do their bidding Over in Gaza, they’re a bit more sophisticated. They’ve figured out that, at least when it comes to Europeans rather than Israelis, the direct approach is less effective than the power of high-profile good deeds. Hamas prefers the take-prisoners-and-then-generously-let-them-go approach.
Read it all.
Crossposted from The American Israeli Patriot.
Johnston has been a terrible reporter from Gaza, and he shows every sign of continuing to refuse to comprehend, or even recognize, the evil that is in front of his face. He was a tool, a tool when a free reporter, a tool when captured, a tool now that he has been freed -- a tool of Fatah, and then a tool of a particular local clan, and finally, a tool of Hamas, attempting to burnish its image.
And the entire BBC effort to "free Alan Johnston" was blatantly based on an appeal to the "Palestinians" to free him not because he should never have been taken in the first place, not because he was a journalist, but because he was so "friendly" to the Arab cause, so intent on "telling their story," so firmly in their camp -- I collected a dozen or so examples of this transparent semaphoring, the BBC's public admission, by executive after executive, of Alan Johnson's "value" to the "Palestinians" as their propagandist ("telling their story to the world") -- in other words, the BBC admitting publicly, but only because it had to, it felt, in order to free him, to the very things which others have charged the BBC with, as part of its systematic anti-Israel and pro-Arab, pro-Muslim bias, and which, had Alan Johston never been taken hostage, would not only never have been admitted to, but would have been stoutly, even indignantly, denied.
Now he's out. And it's the mixture as before, for brave little Alan Johnston, who may have had a shower and a shave and a haircut after his "terrifying ordeal" (which ordeal is par for the "Palestinian" and Arab Muslim course, but Alan Johnston isn't focussing on that -- Alan Johnston is focussed entirely on...Alan Johnston), but remains as morally unkempt as ever.
...Alan Johnston said in an interview."When I was captured...I told them not to kill me, I am on your side."
....I heard him say it, and I believed he was telling them the truth....
Another Despicable Dhimmi; a man for our times.
You are so right, Jay, about Hamas so easily pulling the wool over many Western eyes. What's wrong with people? Are there no minds left?
(Well, obviously there are here, at least, on DW/JW.)
In the "flying pigs" dept., I do believe I heard a journo from the Guardian actually say that before everyone gets too excited about Hamas providing a responsible form of government, that they would have to stop lobbing qassams at Israel too.
Greetings:
Thank you for taking that sharp stick, your brother put in my eye, out.
"Hamas has a huge law and order agenda," he said.
Yeah - sharia law and order. Beheadings. Hands and feet cut off. Stonings. Floggings. And much more.....coming to a neighbourhood near you.
Despite being a commercial free TV Station, paid for by the license fee, the BBC still broadcasts adverts, basically for themselves.
For instance, one advert promised coverage from a country where “ religion is not practiced one day a week, but where it is a way of life.”
What county were they referring to?
Poland where opposition to abortion is written into the law?
India where millions attend religious festivals?
Ah, no it was Palestine! Where religious devotion is expressed, it seems, in the eyes of the BBC, by suicide bombing !
Amazingly, British television owners are forced to pay for this propaganda by the compulsory license fee.
The license fee is a form of legalised mugging, nothing else; I think this would be a quite reasonable conclusion.
I hate to ask a stupid question but if this is the way to win hearts and minds, shouldn't the west consider, say, kidnapping Muslim diplomats for several weeks and then making a great show of letting them go? With a new Brooks Brothers suit to boot? Or what am I missing here?
The BBC is a pro-palestinian and anti-semitic propoganda machine. As a report stated recently "The BBC has a disproportionate number of "ethnic minorities" and is "institutionally biased". Sadly the BBC has helped inflame teh situation in this country. If Jihadists can get into senior positions in the NHS how easy would it be to gain a position of responsibility at AL-BBC.
And meanwhile, even as pro-Palestinian useful idiots always, everywhere, scream and yell and accuse Israel of not observing the 'Geneva Conventions', of infringing human rights, and so on, and so on, Israeli MIAs, kidnapped soldiers, POWs simply...disappear. No-one is told where they are, exactly. No Red Cross worker is ever allowed to see them. No Amnesty International person is allowed to visit. The Red Cross visits 'Palestinian' prisoners in Israeli jails. Journalists visit them. Their families do visit them. But Noam Schalit cannot visit his son. He does not even know for certain that his son is alive.
But, given the nature of the Arab Muslim whenever a Jew (especially a young, beautiful 'David' like Gilad) is at their mercy, I would be prepared to bet that if Gilad is even still alive he has been tortured, and raped, and tortured again, and again, and again by demon-possessed people who do not know - or perhaps they do - that every time they torment this helpless young Jewish man, they are coldly, deliberately, viciously spitting in the face of the Holy One of Israel, the Creator of the Universe, the Lord and Giver of Life. They are acting out the implacable hatred of the Adversary - the Father of Lies, Murderer from the beginning. Joshua of Nazareth said: "Inasmuch as ye have done it to the least of one of these my brethren, you have done it to me". That text covers acts of rejection and destruction just as much as acts of charity and acceptance.
Hamas knows where Gilad is. I am b----y sure of that. They know what is happening to him. I BET they watch the videos.
While Gilad Shalit remains in prison, NOT ONE CENT of jizya should go into Gaza, from ANYBODY in the West, nor from Israel.
I pray for Gilad. It is almost impossible for me to pray for his tormentors, perhaps now his murderers: I can find it in me only to present their demonic cruelty before the throne of the Shepherd of Israel and beg Him, 'DO SOMETHING!'.